Trouble down the line

There is an interesting political situation brewing in France at the moment. Let me try to explain my take on it...

The perceived impression of the French is that they like nothing better than a good strike (as in stopping work rather than in a sporting sense). There is some truth in this and they generally seem to happen around summertime (just to piss off the holidaymakers, avoid picketing in the rain, or just pure coincidence...you decide).

You probably know that France recently elected a new president (if you don't, read the newspapers and not blogs). "Sarko", the new incumbent, is a long way right of centre. His policies were described as "almost Thatcherite" during the run up to the elections - he soon distanced himself from this - that would be political suicide!

France is by generally considered to be a socialist country. Until recently, transport infrastructures, utilities etc. were nationalised and the government highly centralised. The country is crippled with debt, there is high unemployment and it is top-heavy with civil servants. I can tell you from bitter experience that waiting 1/2 a day and trailing from one person to another in the town hall just to fill in a form that could be done in 1 minute is not the most pleasant activity. I recently had a training course, "Finance for non-Financiers". It was all balance sheets and P&L. We had the Anglo-American versions of balance sheets compared to the French versions. 2 pages for the Anglo-version, 200 for the French (permit me to exaggerate).

One of the bug-bears of French employees in the private sector is that the said civil servants get to retire before them (us) at 55 years old - except, that is, for the train drivers. They have a special dispensation to retire at 50. I don't know the exact reasons for this discrepancy, but one of the factors is due to the danger associated with pointing a metal tube down a straight line at 300km/hour. Personally, I have already written about how I feel that getting into your car is a far more dangerous activity, but there you go.

The unions in France are very strong (CGT and FO notably) and they seem to have taken this situation as their opportunity to stand up to Sarko and let him know who is boss. Last week was the first of what I suspect will be many strikes - no trains ran at all last Thursday, and things are still not back to normal. The unions are currently discussing how to proceed, but it is probably with more strikes.

However, Sarko is a strong leader if nothing else. He has clearly defined a program to "trim" the civil service and I am pretty sure he will not capitulate without a fight. I also think he has the public largely on his side at the moment, although that could change.

I am reminded of two (extremely loosely-related) precedents:

1. Margaret Thatcher's fight with the miner's unions in the mid-eighties. I am afraid that my political interests were limited at the time - I was more interested in girls and football (erm, actually, not much has changed - nature 1, nurture 0)
2. The 9/11 terrorist attack. It was on this day that a British government civil servant suggested in a leaked email that because of the attack, that would be a good day to publish all the current bad news (job figures etc). Sarko also chose this day to publish the fact that he and his wife were divorcing and this took many of the headlines - OK, it's not same magnitude, but I am sure it was a spoiling tactic anyway.
   

In any case, like the TGV (arf arf) this one could go a long way...or, because I lack the courage of my convictions and full knowledge of the facts, I could be completely wrong.